A New Yorker thread

George Saunders’ short story “Puppy,” which appears in the May 28th issue, is represented by this old adage perfectly. And it just about killed me.

There are two narratives driving this piece. The first revolves around a middle-class mother and her two “well-loved” (not spoiled!) kids, who are looking to adopt a puppy. The second is about a family who is struggling financially and medically. The couple’s young son has a tendency to wander onto the freeway. They go to great lengths to keep him safe. The couple has a puppy they need to sell. They must sell it so they don’t have to kill it. And that’s where the two worlds collide.

When family number one arrives at family number two’s, mother number one is immediately made uncomfortable by the clutter.

Well, wow, what a super field trip for the kids, Marie thought, ha ha (the filth, the mildew smell, the dry aquarium holding the single encyclopedia volume, the pasta pot on the bookshelf with an inflatable candy cane inexplicably sticking out of it), and although some might have been disgusted (by the spare tire *on the dining-room table,* by the way the glum mother dog, the presumed in-house pooper, was dragging its rear over the pile of clothing in the corner, in a sitting position, splay-legged, a moronic look of pleasure on her face), Marie realized (resisting the urge to rush to the sink and wash her hands, in part because the sink had *a basketball in it*) that what this really was was deeply sad.

But she can look past it, she can, because “had she come from a perfect place”? No. It’s okay. They will take the puppy. But then she sees the unthinkable. Outside, in the yard, is a boy harnessed and chained to a tree. And Marie can’t be a part of that. So. No puppy. A call to child services later, but for now, no puppy.

What Marie doesn’t know, and doesn’t bother to explore beyond her presumptions, is the boy is chained to the tree so he doesn’t wander onto the freeway. So he won’t be killed. She doesn’t know either, that mother number two will take the puppy into a corn field and leave it there, leave it so her poor husband will not have the displeasure of killing it. What Marie and her children leave in their wake is devastating.

Then again, there are other ways, I’m quite sure, to keep a child safe. And spaying a dog isn’t all that expensive. So maybe, then, things are exactly what they seem. In any event, Saunders’ prose is wracked with tension, and he manages to convey both stories with compassion. Excellent work. Bravo.

Read it here.